2015 MINI Cooper Hardtop Road Test & Review

Need to economize but don’t want to ride around looking broke? Do you love to drive, and would really appreciate the feel of something like a BMW, but BMW money is holding you back from jumping on one? Looking for a premium product, but don’t want to come across as an arrogant so-and-so? Want a sporty luxurious car you can go anywhere in without looking like you spent a goodly portion of a year’s salary just to get around?

Normally, it’d take three or four different cars to accomplish all of the above. However, the MINI Cooper Hardtop happily dresses up or down depending upon how much you want to spend, and how you choose to outfit the car. We know a person driving a $25,000 MINI, and we know a person driving a $45,000 MINI—it really is all in how you choose to configure it.

But regardless of how you set it up, all people see from the outside is a feisty little bulldog looking car and your huge smile behind the wheel. Cute but masculine (in the right color combination), economical but premium, a good performer with solid fuel economy numbers, terrific handling with a comfortable ride quality, a diminutive exterior with a spacious interior (for two); the MINI Cooper Hardtop could just well be the ideal solution for all of your motoring needs.

The fact of the matter is you really can go anywhere in a MINI Cooper and look good.

Models & Pricing

Going into the second year of its redesign (the model was completely reworked for the 2014 model year, the MINI Cooper Hardtop is offered in two trim levels and with two doors or four. The base Cooper starts at $20,700, while the Cooper S starts at $24,100. The base Cooper Hardtop 4 Door starts at $21,700, while the Cooper S 4 Door starts at $25,100.

To the pricing above, MINI adds a destination and delivery charge of $850.

Standard equipment for both the 2 Door and the 4 Door includes fifteen-inch alloy wheels, automatic headlights, heated exterior mirrors, a leather wrapped multifunction steering wheel adjustable for tilt and reach, three driving modes, a full complement of power accessories, automatic climate control, a cooled glovebox, cruise control, height adjustable front seats, ambient lighting, and Bluetooth audio streaming and telephony.

Opting for Cooper S gets you a more powerful engine, a hood scoop, a black grille with a mesh treatment instead of horizontal bars, a set of dual exhaust tips emerging from the center of the lower rear valance, an electronic limited slip differential capable of shifting torque from side to side, 16-inch wheels with run flats, LED foglights, and a set of sport seats. It should be noted many of the standard features of the Cooper S could be fitted to the standard Cooper as options—save the mechanical bits and the hood scoop.uB

But that’s just the opening shot. If you want to go deeper, you can fit a MINI Cooper with a broad variety of kits starting with 17- and 18-inch wheels, an adjustable suspension system, a dual-pane sunroof, power folding mirrors, keyless entry (they already have pushbutton start), a rear parking sensor array, a rearview camera, a head-up display, self parking, navigation, Smartphone application integration, heated front seats, leather upholstery, and even a 10-speaker Harmon Kardon audio system—among other things.

Design

The look of the car is an homage to the original 1959 Morris Mini-Minor. A paragon of space efficiency, that car’s mechanical layout was made as compact as possible, so the vast majority of the volume of the car could be given over to passengers and cargo. This was groundbreaking when the car was new, and indeed every front-wheel drive hatchback owes a debt of gratitude to that first Mini-Minor.

This continues with the contemporary version of the car.

The short hood covers a small transversely mounted engine feeding the front wheels. This leaves the big box behind the engine compartment available for people and their stuff. But it goes deeper than that. Within those parameters, MINI’s stylists dictated a three-way separation of the body structure. If you look closely, you’ll see the lower body of the car, the greenhouse, and the roof are all separate visual elements, with the roof appearing to “float” above the rest of the car.

The wide track and extremely short overhangs speak to the stability and cornering prowess of the Cooper. Further, the character line and the sill line running along the bottom of the car (when viewed in profile) tie the front and rear wheels together.

The basic shape of the grille, the side marker lights, and the circular headlights refer back to that first Morris Mini-Minor. Granted today’s car is considerably larger than its forebear, but parked side by side, the family resemblance is undeniable. For added distinctiveness, the exterior of the Cooper can be adorned with hood stripes, and a variety of treatments for the roof and side-view mirror housings.

Features & Controls

If there is a more fun and quirky, yet premium looking interior treatment on the road, we have yet to encounter it. The distinctive personality established by the exterior styling of the MINI Cooper carries on inside the car as well. A large circular pod dominates the dash, which is where the speedometer resided in the original Mini-Minor. Today, it contains the device MINI’s marketing team refers to as the “central instrument”.  

For cars equipped without the navigation system it contains a four-line TFT display. With navigation, it features an eight-inch color monitor for interacting with a variety of other vehicle functions as well. These include infotainment, communication, and MINI Connected Services. Further, the rim around the central instrument is fitted with LEDs, which change color to reflect different operating characteristics of the car. These include the park distance control, the climate control system, the navigation system, and driving mode.

Despite the eclecticism of its appearance, the interior of the MINI Copper is well laid out. Controls are legibly labeled and exactly where you expect them to be. Large round knobs are employed for the climate system, the hazard lights switch is mounted up high and centrally located so it is easy to find, and the cool toggle switches at the bottom of the center stack invite your touch.

This is a car enjoys human interaction.

Comfort & Cargo

Back seat be damned though, this is two-place car—for the most part. If the folks up front are feeling philanthropically generous, two people can ride in the back for a while, but that seat’s best left to younger children. The good news is the redesign added more volume to the interior, so the back seat is better than it was before, but it still ain’t gonna accommodate Kobe Bryant—On the other hand however, 6’6” Kobe could fit in the front seat and drive comfortably to boot.

Of all the seating options offered, we prefer the more deeply bolstered sport seats with their adjustable thigh support for longer legged drivers. Nice and firm, and capable of supporting fatigue-free driving for hours on end—it’s one of the places where the BMW roots of the MINI shows through most vividly.

(There are others too, we’ll get to them in just a bit.

Cargo capacity, as you might well imagine is at a premium; with 8.7 cubic feet behind the back seat in the 2 Door; and 13.1 cubic feet for the 4 Door. Fold the rear seat and capacity jumps to 38 cubic feet for the 2 Door and 40.7 cubic feet for the 4 Door.

Safety & Crash Test Ratings

Among the safety features fitted to the MINI Cooper Hardtop are ABS, cornering brake control, electronic brake force distribution, brake drying, brake fade support, traction control, stability control, tire pressure monitoring, torque steer compensation, and a full complement of airbags.

Options include a rear parking sensor array, a back-up camera, a head-up display, smart cruise control, collision- and pedestrian-warning with automatic braking, a high beam assistant, and self-parking,

NHTSA ranks the Cooper Hardtop a four-star car in frontal crash protection and rollover protection. The IIHS only shows results for moderate overlap front testing for the Cooper Hardtop, in which the car scored the Institute’s highest ranking, “Good”.

Engine(s) & Fuel Economy

Power comes from a choice of two engines. Offered as standard equipment with both is the MINI driving mode selector—offering a choice between Sport, Green, and Mid modes. As their names suggest, the Sport mode makes the engine respond more aggressively, the Green mode maximizes fuel efficiency, and the Mid mode strikes a balance between the two.

Both engines also employ auto stop/start to help improve fuel efficiency.

The standard Cooper Hardtop gets a turbocharged 1.5-liter three-cylinder good for 134 horsepower and 152 ft-lbs of torque. By the way, this is the same gasoline engine BMW fits to its exotic i8 hybrid supercar (albeit somewhat detuned).

A six-speed manual transmission with hill start assist and rev matched downshifts is the standard offering for routing power to the MINI’s front wheels. A six-speed automatic transmission is offered as an option. Fuel economy with the manual is rated at 29-city, 40-highway, and 33-combined. With the automatic, estimates are 28-city, 37-highway, and 31-combined.

By the way, those numbers hold for both the 2 Door and the 4 Door.

A 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder engine good for 189 horsepower and 207 ft-lbs of torque powers the Cooper S Hardtop. The transmission choices are the same as the standard Cooper’s, although the automatic gets paddle shifters in the Cooper S. According to the EPA, with Cooper S automatic, you can expect 26-city, 33-highway, and 29-combined. The manual transmission is said to be good for 24-city, 34-highway, and 27 mpg combined.

Driving Impressions

MINI’s marketing makes much of the go-kart nature of the driving character of the MINI Cooper, and it’s pretty dead-on correct. The steering is quick, turn-in is sharp, and grip is terrific. Amazingly, as good as all of that is, the Cooper still manages to deliver a supple ride. Most people know BMW owns MINI these days and there’s a lot of the nature of the ultimate driving machines in the way these little cars go down the road.

They’re smoothly competent, the engines are full of pep, and all of the controls respond with satisfying immediacy. There’s no two ways about it, driving a MINI is just straight-up fun. And yet, if you want your MINI to simply putter around town as the world’s coolest economy car, the Cooper will gladly accommodate you in that regard as well.

If you fall into that category, take our advice, save yourself some cash, and go with the standard Cooper. It’s heresy to waste the delights of the Cooper S on such mundanities.

Final Thoughts

Yes, there is much to love about the MINI Cooper, which is why the cars have such devoted followings. Talking to an owner, she says “ It does everything I wanted it to do; it’s fun to drive, it makes people smile when they see it and it brings joy into the day. It wasn’t expensive, but it doesn’t feel cheap and I feel good about it wherever I need to go. Yes, you’re rather limited in terms of passenger count, but the other side of it is, if you fold the rear seat down you can take way more cargo that you’d ever think possible. I brought home a 52-inch flat screen TV in the back of my MINI with no problem whatsoever.” How can you not love it?

Pros & Cons

Delightful personality, responsive dynamics, outstanding versatility, feels more expensive than it actually is, a broad roster of standard equipment, seemingly endless personalization possibilities, exceptional fuel economy

Limited interior space, rearward visibility can be an issue, larger wheels and sport suspension packages can make the ride somewhat harsh—but the car handles better with them too, so that one’s a tradeoff.